By Smitha Vishwanath

Kabul is falling
Kabul is falling,
while the rest of us are watching
with knitted brows and furrowed foreheads
as many as hundreds
of thousands lie dead
and the Kabul River runs red
with slaughtered dreams of the Afghans
and trampled actions of the Americans.
Rock by rock, the hilly country crumbles
at the hands of the bearded rebels.
Into a heap of stones collapse the long-fatigued walls
and streets turn blue as district-by-district falls.
Gunshots sound like warning bells--
Death knells
for the men in pakol hats, who confounded stare
unaware
of what is to become of them
amidst the bloody mayhem.
Wide-eyed their rosy-cheeked children
build castles in the dirt; and their women
in chadarees --
can no longer mask their worries
as the turbaned vultures --
circle the city, waiting, to tear open uncured sutures
'Kabul must fend for itself,' the men in uniform say,
and turn their backs and walk away.
Promises made by the top brass bite the dust
on the rugged tarmac of hopes; ‘Ah! The Pashtuns are cursed.’
Onlookers say, ‘Those men-- tall, broad shouldered and strong,
And women-- creamy white, chiselled; what did they do wrong?’
Their children’s faces
in coveted places--
on magazine covers, win the best photograph of the year
for their glassy-grey eyes that glare with fear
which we call, ‘grit’
as on the couch we sit
flipping the glossy pages,
ignoring their pain and rage.
Let’s not bother.
Let’s all look hither
and nod our heads
and look on with furrowed foreheads
and express regret for the misfortune
Of those born in a land where mulberries and apricots are grown.
Let’s thank our stars
for our nation free of wars
while the children of Hades turn the ‘graveyard of empires’ red --
A deep red like the juice of the ‘fruit of the dead’
planted around the sands
on which the Shrine of Hazrat Ali stands
and let’s watch it happen--
Kabul falling-- Falling, fallen.
Pakol: Soft, round-topped hat made of wool
Chadarees: A shawl
Smitha Vishwanath is a banker turned writer. A management professional, she embarked on the writing journey in 2016, with her blog, https://lifeateacher.wordpress.com.Her poems and articles have been published in various anthologies. In July 2018, she co-authored a book of poetry: Roads – A Journey with Verses.
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